What Are You Reading Right Now?

[Mr Person]

And into "The Dark Forest" (Cixin Liu; second in a trilogy).

 

[Rogue Valley]

Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union
By Vladislav M. Zubok - Yale University Press - 2021 - 560pp

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union, showing how Gorbachev’s misguided reforms led to its demise.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution

By Eric Jay Dolin - Liveright - 2022 - 352pp

While the infant American navy fought gallantly, privateers presented the Royal Navy with its greatest challenge. Eric Jay Dolin’s Rebels at Sea is an excellent book about those overlooked patriots who brought the war at sea home to the British.

 

[NewfieMom]

Still reading Bloodlands. Just finished Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym. Barbara Pym is often compared to Jane Austen. She was English and wrote delicately, elegantly, and slyly. Her books are a treat, but one has to be bright and patient to enjoy them. Quartet in Autumn is held to be her masterpiece, but I did not enjoy reading it as much as some of her other books, perhaps because of the theme, which was about aging and death. I have to confess that there were some very comical scenes in the book; Ms.Pym has a splendid imagination. Three of the four characters also emerge triumphant from their travails at the end of the book. It just wasn't the cozy, escapist literature about gossip about curates in a small English village that I enjoy very much!

If you read it, you will enjoy Marcia's problem with the milk bottle.

 

[Threegoofs]

Slouching towards Utopia- a new book from Brad DeLong, an economic historian.

Really interesting stuff if you have any interest in history and economics.

Slouching Towards Utopia

An instant New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from one of the world’s leading economists, offering a grand narrative of the century that made us richer than ever, but left us unsatisfied “A magisterial history.”—Paul Krugman Named a Best Book of 2022 by Financial Times * Economist...

books.google.com

 

[Rogue Valley]

Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond

By Chris Hillman - BMG Books - 2020 - 315pp.

Originally a mandolin/folk guitar player in a number of southern California bluegrass bands, Chris Hillman agreed to be the bass guitarist (an instrument he had never played) in a new band called The Byrds. When the band went into the studio to record Mr. Tambourine Man in 1965, only Byrds 12 string guitarist Jim (Roger) McGuinn was considered proficient enough to be on the recording. The Wrecking Crew recordered the other instument tracks. Producer Terry Melcher [Doris Day's only child] told the band to start playing live in LA clubs and to come back when they could actually play their instruments. They returned to the Columbia studio about 6 months later and recorded the rest of the Mr. Tambourine Man album. Chris Hillman played bass guitar, mandolin, and accoustic guitar for The Byrds and also contributed song material and vocals as time went on. After The Byrds broke up, Hillman joined The Flying Burrito Brothers, Stephen Stills' band Manassas, and the Desert Rose Band. Considered pioneers in country rock, The Byrds were inducted by Don Henley into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. Chris and wife Connie live in southern California. They have two adult children, Catherine and Nicholas.

 

[ihealyou]

The Scarlet Letter by N. Hawthorne.

 

[Roadvirus]

Just finished Robert McCammon's They Thirst.
A several hundred year old vampire (with the physical appearance of a teenager) takes up residence in a deceased B-Movie actor's castle on the outskirts of L.A. and, during the week of Halloween (his mentor, quite possibly being Satan, wants the city to be completely taken by Halloween Eve), turns the city's population into a vampire army.

Note: This book shows that McCammon doesn't believe in the "Vampires must be invited in" rule.

 

[Rogue Valley]

The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021
By Peter Baker and Susan Glasser - Doubleday - 2022 - 752

"A comprehensive and scathing chronicle of the Trump administration...The result is the most encyclopedic account of the Trump presidency yet published."

 

[SayMyName]

 

[Quag]

Death of a president by William Manchester
His description of the climate in Dallas leading up to the assassination reminded me of today's political climate

 

[maquiscat]

I'm working my way through the Mage Storm trilogy by Mercedes Lackey. I just got done the first two series of the Herald Spy era for the same world setting, set earlier in the history.

 

[Risky Thicket]

When Paris Went Dark - The city of Light Under German Occupation

By Ronald Rosbottom

_________

It is an excellent read if the topic interests you.

 

[Rogue Valley]

Before The Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and What Lies Beyond

By Laura Mersini-Houghton - Mariner Books - 2022- 240pp

Mersini-Houghton’s groundbreaking research suggests that we sit in a quantum landscape whose peaks and valleys hide a multitude of other universes, and even hold the secret to the origins of existence itself.

 

[NewfieMom]

I just finished The House In The Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune. It is not a book I would usually have come across, but my niece was reading it for a book club to which she belongs several months ago and I decided to try it. I am glad I did. I eventually became enthralled by the story and found myself wanting to get back to the book. I did not know, until I was well into the book, that the author was a well-known LGBTQ advocate. I found the book very warmhearted and charming. The genre is magical/fantasy (I guess). In the plot an inspector goes to an island to investigate an orphanage for magical children and is deeply affected by the experience.

 

[Loulit01]

Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford. I saw the mini-series on PBS and thought it was very good.

 

[NewfieMom]

I wrote, in post 2740 of this thread:

"It is not a book I would usually have come across, but my niece was reading it for a book club to which she belongs several months ago".

I wanted to correct that because the writing is a crime. I will try again:

Several months ago my niece told me about a book she was reading for a book club to which she belongs. The book is not one I would usually have come across, and it was fortuitous that my niece was reading it and that she mentioned it to me.

I apologize for interrupting the thread, but I brake for bad grammar.

 

[HK.227]

What Are You Reading Right Now?

"Incorruptible politicians through the ages."
It's a small one page pamphlet that is mostly blank.

 

[Josie]

The premise is similar to The Umbrella Academy with 6 young people who have different magical powers coming together for a particular mission. I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5. There's a sequel, but I'm not dying to read it. Maybe someday.

 

[maquiscat]

The premise is similar to The Umbrella Academy with 6 young people who have different magical powers coming together for a particular mission. I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5. There's a sequel, but I'm not dying to read it. Maybe someday.

There was a kid's book when I was growing up similar to this. The Girl with the Silver Eyes, I think was the title. It was the basis for several of my stories way back when. I had also borrowed heavily from Power Rangers and Super Friends, not to mention a blatant steal from Manimal.

 

[Loulit01]

There was a kid's book when I was growing up similar to this. The Girl with the Silver Eyes, I think was the title. It was the basis for several of my stories way back when. I had also borrowed heavily from Power Rangers and Super Friends, not to mention a blatant steal from Manimal.

Good authors borrow from other authors. Great authors steal shamelessly.

 

[Loulit01]

Finally got around to reading Lonesome Dove. The reviews were so good I think my expectations were too high.

 

[sub1028]

 

[Rogue Valley]

Why We Did It: A Travelogue From The Republican Road To Hell

By Tim Miller - Harper - 2022 - 288pp

Former Republican political operative Tim Miller answers the question no one else has fully grappled with: Why did normal people go along with the worst of Trumpism?

 

[Rogue Valley]

The Fight of Our Lives: My Time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine's Battle for Democracy, and What It Means for the World
By Iuliia Mendel - Atria - 2022 - 240pp

Iuliia Mendel was born and raised in the southern port city of Henichesk, Kherson Oblast on the Sea of Azov (currently occupied by Russia). A native Russian speaker, she graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv with a degree in Philological Sciences and received her Ph.D from the Institute of Philology of Kyiv National University where she studied English, Polish, and the Ukrainian language and literature. She worked as a journalist for ICTV, Espreso TV, 112 Ukraine and Inter TV channels. Iuliia Mendel became the first Ukrainian journalist to win the World Press Institute program. She also reported for the New York Times, Politico Europe, the Atlantic Council, Der Speigel and Forbes. Mendel won a competition for Presidential Press Secretary that was announced by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 30 April 2019. Winning from 4,000 other contestants, Mendel was appointed on 3 June 2019, an appointment she held until July 2021. She always translated Zelenskyy's speeches, documents, and decrees into English, and in Western articles provided valuable insights into the new president.

Although not a biography, this book is a very good sketch of Volodmyr Zelenskyy the man, the comedian, and the president. It explains how he made the leaps from university student (Law degree) in his hometown of Kryvyi Rih, a metalurgical industrial city and a rough, violent place in the 1980's-1990's, to become Ukraine's most famous comedian, and then to the presidency of Ukraine itself. Iuliia Mendel takes us on a journey that does much to explain how a successful comedian became a renowned war-time president and a symbol of freedom to most of the world.